PORTSMOUTH — RiverRun Bookstore welcomes author Sam Halpern to read from and discuss his new book, A Far Piece to Canaan, on Tuesday, July 9 at 7 p.m.

About the author:

Sam Halpern is the legendary father of Justin Halpern, author of the phenomenal #1 New York Times best-seller Sh*t My Dad Says. A professor of nuclear medicine, he lives in Southern California.

About the book:

Inspired by Sam Halpern’s own childhood in rural Kentucky, A Far Piece to Canaan is a heartfelt novel about a group of boys, their gruesome discovery, and the unexpected things we learn when we reconnect with our past.

Samuel Zelinsky is a celebrated but haunted professor who reluctantly returns home to the Kentucky hills after his wife’s death. The son of sharecroppers, Samuel has long since left his childhood life behind — yet now must try to reconnect with long-denied memories in order to achieve peace of mind. We return with him to 1945, when he first meets Fred Mulligan, the hired hand’s bright and spirited ten-year-old son. Together with two neighbor boys, Samuel and Fred visit the Blue Hole, a legendary pool of water on the Kentucky River where the hill people believe an evil force lurks. The boys find the body of a dog, surrounded by twisted human footprints, and later discover a cave that offers further evidence of something terrible. Fearing that they’ll be punished for their trespasses, they begin a series of cover-ups and lies that eventually leads to disaster.

Click image to enlarge

Sam Halper

Samuel and Fred promise each other that if either of them ever needs help in life, the other will come to his aid. Yet after he moves to Indiana, Samuel is ridiculed for his “mountaineer” background and rejects his past. Now, as he returns decades later, he is devastated to learn from a fellow classmate about Fred’s tragic life story in the years that followed. Samuel manages to make contact with Fred’s troubled granddaughter, Lisa June, who he hopes will help him find a kind of peace — but only if she can come to trust him in time.

A tale of superstition, secrecy, and heroism in the postwar South, A Far Piece to Canaan is the surprising and moving debut of a gifted storyteller.

RiverRun Bookstore is located at 142 Fleet St. in downtown Portsmouth. The store hosts more than 150 events each year. For details, call 603-431-2100 or visit www.riverrunbookstore.com.